How can a President present a country’s budget and take it back? I remember when a dear sister was so happy and optimistic that the 2016 budget was already out before the year started and said “even with ‘world class economist’ the budget usually come long after the year had started”.

SO many unusual things happen every day in our society – and typical of us as Nigerians, we never bother to ask why some of these things happen the way they do.

Mr. President, you will recall that I wrote you an open letter on December 28th, 2015 which I sincerely hope that you found most gratifying, illuminating and helpful. That was two days before your Presidential media chat which took place on December 30th. I hereby humbly crave your indulgence to add an addendum to that open letter. That is what this contribution represents.

AT this time of the year, the practice is to make resolutions on how to move forward in the new year, habit to reinforce and that to discarded. It is like a goal setting process, only that, in this instance the decisions are made under atmospheres of feasting and wining, so they barely last beyond the first or second week of the new year.

PRESENTLY, Bayelsa State is under a situation of suspended animation characterised by eruption of violence particularly in the politically fertile Southern Ijaw Local Government Area. The December 5 and 6 2015 governorship election was, indeed, declared inconclusive following tension between the two major political parties, the APC and PDP, and the polls in the Ijaw area rescheduled for January 9, 2016. While the mutual finger-pointing war continues, the Joint Task Force which was responsible for security during the polls has alleged complicity on the part of the PDP and the state governor, Seriake Dickson in the violence that torpedoed the election.

THE Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, recently announced the intention of the Federal Government to convert most of the unemployed graduates to teachers in a bid to tackle the perennial problem of graduate unemployment, adding that all youths in the country are not entitled to the N5,000 monthly stipend promised by the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government, hence the basis for putting in place the teacher recruitment programme.

In the last week of the year 2015, I woke up to read the story about the record breaking statue of ‘Jesus’ the Christ commissioned by one Obinna Onuoha at St. Aloysius Catholic Church in the village of Abajah in Imo state.

Mr. President, as one of your most loyal and faithful subjects who has nothing but the utmost respect for your person and your office, I am constrained to write you this open letter. This is because there are issues I believe are important for you to clarify and to come clean on. I say this because some of your assertions of late are at best contradictory.

Despite the economic challenges faced by the nation in 2015, many institutions and agencies in the country managed to put together different activities to mark the yuletide season and to welcome the New Year.

The politics of pull-him-down is on display at a trade fair craftily packaged to cast a dent on the good name and image of Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture.

Controversial Nigerian ‘Prophet’ T.B. Joshua has released a list of bleak predictions for the New Year 2016, particularly directed towards the continent of Africa

2015, has come and gone forever, with its risks, lies, cheatings, manipulations, deceits, and deaths, and leaves us with many issues to continue to grapple with. Many may not indeed know how we got here, but I know, that if it were not for God, we won’t have made it.

NIGERIA is great not just because it is the seventh most populous country on the planet. It is an important nation not only on account of her oil wealth It is significant more because of the energy of her people, whose creativity and resilient spirit of enterprise continues to assure her progress even in the face of seemingly hopeless situations. It is due to the hard-work and industry of the ordinary Nigerians- the nation’s greatest asset, that Nigeria attained a GDP rebased at $510 billion in 2013 exceeding that of South Africa to become the biggest African economy even in the face of her parlous infrastructure.

After months of addressing Nigerians from outside the country on issues that are largely local, granting interviews to foreign media outfits while neglecting the local media, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), was finally convinced (or was it confused) to host a presidential media chat in Nigeria. Before now, Nigerians had expressed strong reservations on why the president had chosen to always make policy statements concerning the country only whenever he travelled abroad. For those who might not understand why, the president’s media chat shows it.

IT is an axiomatic fact that a leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. But most times, the encumberances and challenges associated with leadership often derail leaders. But the ability to overcome such challenges, differentiates a leader from others.